Things are falling apart in the concluding book of Pullman's latest trilogy, the second of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that appears, now more than ever, as a energized and tilted version of our own. Institutions are failing, or restructuring themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is wrecking the air and the seasons"; simultaneously, "money's going bad, and no one knows why". Power is flowing away from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the vaults of conglomerates, the grasp of crowds. "An element is at work, silently, gradually", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the ancient paths from his seat in an city cafe. "Things we thought were stable and strong are weakening and failing."
The Central Mystery and Lyra's Journey
Precisely what that something might be, and ways to oppose it, is the inquiry that animates the concluding book, which continues where the previous book left off. This is, reportedly, Pullman's last excursion into the carefully crafted, infinitely beguiling realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the publication of the first trilogy. It's a domain whose landscape maps on to that of this world, but whose past tacks and jibes with ours; where the people appear and reason and behave like us, but are joined by external spirits, souls in beast form; where the heavens are teeming with witches and mythical beasts, but below, buses are taken and drinks is consumed, and mature scholars carry Harrods shopping bags. Our heroine, whom we first met as a 12-year-old in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then met once more as a infant in the first volume, the prequel with which Pullman began the series, is now a adult: still recognisably the sharp and tenacious main character of the previous installments, but aged, sadder, warier, less certain. This circumscription is intensified by her separation from her soul companion, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which made him desert her in the first place.
Merging Narratives
His choice to depart in search of that innocent part of Lyra which she appears to have shed (an trait which he represents as her "creativity"), and her mission to reunite with him, were the driving forces of its predecessor, which followed Lyra undertake a adventurous journey across the continent and into the mountain region, meeting with marvel and danger on the way. But from the outset, profound shifts were in action, and sinister powers at work. The church authority – the religious controlling power, and the author's brilliantly sinister incarnation of rigid, bureaucratic wickedness – is under new leadership, and showing its strength. The antagonist – Lyra's family member, who blames her for his sibling's death – has manoeuvred himself into the position of president of the church's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to broaden the institution's rule. Malcolm Polstead, who carried infant Lyra to security along a overflowing river as an child in La Belle Sauvage, is now an Oxford don with a sideline in intelligence work: he is assigned to the city to discover more about his plans. And behind all of this is the enigma surrounding the rare and costly botanical extract which appears somehow to be the origin of a social and economic disturbance emanating out from the region. The oil is regarded by some as a tradeable good, by different parties as a research-based or esoteric wonder, and by yet others – the fanatical "men from the mountains" – as a origin of evil; an challenge that must be destroyed. The question of its source, its meaning, and whether it should be removed or safeguarded is escalating in importance.
Similar to the original trilogy, Lyra's deeds, and her fate, are demonstrated to be inseparably entwined with the fate of the world
In The Secret Commonwealth, these storylines ran mostly in parallel. In The Rose Field, they merge. As in the first trilogy, her movements and her destiny are unveiled to be inseparably woven with the fate of the realm. Her individual quest to reunite with her daemon and rediscover her creativity becomes the key conflict in a larger war with an controlling system which, as such authorities typically do, is attempting to suppress autonomy of thinking, innovation and expression: all the inner, rebellious ways in which humans can be free.
Cosmic Openings and Moral Battles
The novel begins with the unveiling of a series of strange openings in the makeup of the planet's atmosphere: portals that appear to open into different dimensions. An example of a window appears to be the point of the fiercely disputed rose oil. The authority, with the antagonist at its head, designates these windows as a problem to the religion's doctrine and aims to eliminate them. As the heroine begins to turn away from rigid reason and return to feeling, nevertheless, her conviction that these places must be protected – that their significance and what they provide is somehow crucial – strengthens. "Cosmic particles, or the substance, or the creativity, or the Rose Field, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The scene for a philosophical struggle between naivety and maturity is established.
Narrative Pacing and Protagonist Growth
At 640 pages, The Rose Field|this volume|the
